You can’t go home again

Why do some writers return to the same material? Is it because they feel they didn’t do it justice the first time around? Are they ready -- after psychotherapy or family attrition -- to delve deeper and reveal more?

There are authors who have checked on their characters every few years (John Updike with Rabbit Angstrom, Philip Roth with Nathan Zuckerman, Ellen Gilchrist with Rhoda Manning). Others tell the same story from different points of view to brilliant effect, as Evan S. Connell does in his novels “Mrs. Bridge” and “Mr. Bridge.”

Many writers remain haunted by certain subject matter, and their retreads can be fascinating. Often, what starts as a short story is later expanded into a full novel, as Thomas Mann did in “The Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man.” Or the substance of a novel is later confronted more directly in a memoir, as with Kathryn Harrison’s “Thicker Than Water” and “The Kiss.” Similarly, aspects of Paula Fox’s miserable childhood found their way into her fiction before she unveiled them in her searing memoir, “Borrowed Finery.”

Sometimes, alas, a writer’s second pass at material is less effective than the first. This is the case with Merrill Joan Gerber’s “The Victory Gardens of Brooklyn,” which expands upon the unhappy family first presented in “The Kingdom of Brooklyn,” broadening her purview to include the preceding generation and multiple branches of the Sauerbach clan.

Gerber’s earlier novel, which won the Ribalow Prize for “the best English-language fiction on a Jewish theme” from Hadassah magazine when it was published in 1992, transforms a troubled childhood into a glittering gem through the alchemy of fiction. A testament to the power of point of view, it is narrated by young Issa Berger, whose keen emerging consciousness brings her difficult, miserable mother into sharp focus in the years 1942 through 1952.

“The Victory Gardens of Brooklyn,” Gerber’s sixth novel and 12th book of fiction, is more ambitious in scope, but also more diffuse. It opens in 1906, when Issa’s Polish-born grandmother, Rachel, is in her mid-30s. Abandoned by her gambling, philandering first husband, she is left destitute on Manhattan’s Lower East Side with two young children -- both unmentioned in the earlier novel. Lacking options, she grits her teeth and marries a tyrannical widowed tailor, Isaac Sauerbach, with whom she bears the two bickering daughters featured in “Kingdom.”

“Victory Gardens” follows Rachel Sauerbach’s family through 1945 -- which results in six pivotal years of direct overlap between the two novels. Incidents are duplicated, but many particulars, including characters’ names, don’t match up in the two versions. Far more disconcerting, however, is the drastic change in style and tone. Whereas “Kingdom” is taut and unsentimental, “Victory Gardens” is repetitive and often corny.

Written in the third person, the new novel is a family saga that shifts perspective between Rachel’s three daughters: Ava, from her first marriage; Musetta, Issa’s demanding, jealous mother (named Ruth in the earlier book); and saint-like, acne-scarred Gilda -- whose innermost secrets are revealed in adolescently confessional diary entries addressed to “Secret Heart.”

The contrast between these two books is especially stark in the characterization of Issa’s mother, a bitterly disappointed woman who behaves monstrously in both versions. In “Kingdom,” there’s enough nuance in Issa’s portrait to arouse horrified sympathy for Ruth, as when Issa implies that her mother may have valid grounds for being jealous of her husband’s attentions to her sister Gilda. In “Victory Gardens,” by contrast, Musetta’s repeated rants against one and all make her an exceedingly tiresome, uninteresting character.

At the core of both books are vicious rivalries between successive generations of sisters. Brothers seem to suffer no such animosity. Ava’s older brother Shmuel is a comfort whether he’s stuck in an orphanage or enslaved in their uncle’s factory. “You’re my little sister. If I don’t take care of you, who will?” he says with hokey earnestness. Later, Ava’s two sons send each other “swell” letters of support during World War II.

Gerber shows a predilection for writing from the perspective of young girls with aching hearts, making her new novel feel at times as if it were intended for a young adult audience. Ten-year-old Ava, like Issa in “Kingdom,” has trouble choking down her food; both books could put even Col. Sanders off chicken. Worse, Ava has to dodge advances from lecherous predators, including her repulsive Uncle Hymie. “Did a woman always have to be on guard against men?” she wonders. Both Ava and Musetta luck into kind husbands, but neither marriage thrives. Musetta’s risible, unhappy reaction to her husband’s desire on their wedding night helps to explain why: “In her back she could feel the baton of his inner music rising for an encore performance.”

The early chapters of “Victory Gardens” capture the voices of the Lower East Side and the strains of assimilation. “Life is too hard,” Gerber’s characters complain repeatedly. “Sometimes I wonder if life is worth living. There’s so much pain and so many hard things,” Gilda writes in her diary at age 19. “All we do in life is try not to die,” she observes.

Of course, the Jewish immigrant experience has been covered before. Earlier this year, Amy Bloom breathed new life into the genre with “Away,” a rousing adventure tale featuring a feisty young woman with modern-day pluck. “The Victory Gardens of Brooklyn” exhibits no such freshness.